...we would love to claim we conducted this trial with noble
purpose, but the truth is that we just wanted to make peanut butter and jellyfish simply to see if it
could be done. Whether or not it should be done is a question no doubt to be debated by
philosophers for the ages (or at least by some aquarists over beers). We herein report on what we
believe to be the first known unholy amalgamation of America's favorite lunchtime treat and live
cnidarians.

Montoya and Christie emulsified creamy peanut butter and seawater in a blender and fed it to ~250 of the zoo's young moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita). The pair then monitored the jellies' early development, and found two things.

One: the jellyfish took on a distinctly brown color immediately after feeding. (Pictured above are two moon jellies. The one on the left is in a contracted state and has just been fed, hence its brown-ness.)

Two: While their growth rates have tapered slightly compared to normal jellies, the PB-fed specimens appear to have developed "on-par with normal A. aurita outgrowth."

Montoya and Christie intend to continue raising the jellyfish to see if they can reproduce successfully. They make no mention of a followup study in their writeup of the experiment, but it wouldn't be a bad idea. Montoya and Christie's investigation lacked a control group. There was also no variation of ratios in the peanutbutter/seawater mixtures, which there really should be if you're trying to strike a balance between cost-effectiveness and the health of the animals you're raising. This experiment may have started out as something of a joke – but it doesn't have to end that way.